April 30, 2002: a story about a cat
Let me tell you a story about a cat.
His wandering ways and his habit of getting into trash cans got him landed in the Iowa City animal shelter during the fall of 1994. He was a butch little cat, but oddly shy with strangers--and there were lots and lots of strangers at the shelter.
I wandered into the shelter, having recently moved into a place that allowed cats. I looked at the rows of cages that seperated the cats from the humans, and my eye fell on this black cat, who was sitting in the middle of his cage, looking at me. Our eyes met, and he immediately opened his mouth and let out an ear-splitting yowl. He swished his tail and rubbed himself against the cage. His motions clearly indicated that his human was here, and that he would like to go home now, please.
I took him into the adoption room, and the adoption person clipped his claws for me and then left so the two of us could get to know each other. Within five minutes, he was sitting on my lap purring, and I was in love.
I adopted him, got him neutered, and took him home. He hid in the closet for a few weeks, only wanting to be near me. Preferably on my lap, being petted, if possible. I quickly trained him not to bite me, but the obsessive attention was getting to be a bit much, so I got him a companion, a fuzzy little grey-and-white kitten named Juniper. It took them about a week, but they finally hit it off and became constant companions.
He was still shy around people, but as the years passed and we moved from Iowa to Seattle, he started getting calmer around them, especially if they were sitting down. His first loyalties were always to me. I taught him to tolerate and then enjoy being held, he started taking me for walks, and when we moved into my current house there was always something to do and something to play with.
He would bring me things--at first things made out of plastic, like the tarp he once dragged into my room. Then he began bringing me toys, all of his fuzzy mice and feather toys. Occasionally, he would bring me dead birds (and sometimes living ones). He was a birder, not a mouser, and loved to chase the feather toy if I swished it through the air for him.
His disapproved of several of my boyfriends, liked a couple of my boyfriends and all of my girlfriends, and has lately taken to sleeping on Chris' hip at night. A friend of mine once remarked at what a noble face he has, with the broad flat nose so reminiscient of a panther and those golden-green eyes.
He has always been the most affectionate of the cats, the one most likely to sleep next to me, the one who finds his way onto my lap when I'm reading, the one who head-bumps me in greeting and grooms my ears for me. He's the one with the penchant for high places, for hideyholes, for sleeping in the sun and rolling on the pavement. He's the one I could not keep indoors, ever, who always ran past me when I opened the door and out into the night, where he might be gone an hour or two before he came in, tired and happy and smelling like starlight.
I'd pick him up and he'd push his head under my chin, purring. He became a limp sack of muscle and bone when he was happy, and when i was holding him he was very, very happy. A few months ago, when i took him to get some bloodwork done, the vet brought him out to me after the blood draw. He was stiff in her arms, and then she handed him to me. A couple of seconds passed, he realized who was holding him, and then he went limp all at once, landing against my chest with an audible thud.
He is my boycat, my catchild, my most constant love of the past eight years. He is, as SARK writes, a "miracle with fur".
And there is something dreadfully wrong with him.
Last summer, when Lilith was having trouble with urinary tract infections, Kallisti started throwing up. Not after every meal, a few times a week. I thought he was having trouble with hairballs, and it seemed for a while like that's all it was.
And then he started throwing up more meals than not, and losing weight rapidly.
I thought it was the food he was on, and I switched it for a canned food with no grains in it, which helped for a long time. I took him to the vet in October, and his bloodwork all came back normal. So I continued feeding him, and doing the things that seemed to help, but he was becoming surly and aggressive with the other cats. He'd always loved the other cats, and it was very rare that he'd hiss at them, but hissing and yowling started to be a regular thing in the household. And in the past month, he started being aggressive towards me, smacking me on the ankle when he thought I was in the way.
He stopped bringing me presents six months ago.
He was still active, though, and still had plenty of good days when he didn't throw up and was pleasant towards the other cats. The good days have been getting more and more infrequent, though. He did gain some weight for a while, there, but in the past three weeks he's been losing it rapidly, feeling more and more fragile.
Two weeks ago, I discovered that someone had been peeing on the office rug, probably regularly for a few weeks. After that rug was thrown away, I caught him emptying his bladder on the other throw rugs in the house. That's when I started to really worry.
After I figured out that he wasn't grooming himself any more, I made a vet appointment.
That was this morning.
He has lost almost exactly 50% of his normal body weight. And he has a mass in his upper abdomen, probably on his bowels or liver.
He is dying.
I can't type those words without a flood of tears coming to my eyes. I knew that this probably was the case. I think I knew a few weeks ago that his time here was limited.
I have to wait till 5 to call the vet. I've been in tears all day, waiting to hear the news I know is probably coming. I'll hopefully pick him up and take him home with me tonight, depending on how he's done today. He's been deteriorating rapidly since I made the appointment last Thursday, and they were planning on running some fluids into him while he's there today to make him more comfortable.
With any luck, they'll be able to aspirate the mass today, and by tomorrow we should know what it is. And then the decision will be made whether to put him on painkillers and steroids for a while to make him comfortable while he dies, or if it's an aggressive carcinoma and euthanasia is pretty much the only option.
It's my job now to make his passing as painless as possible, to make the hard decisions for him. To provide for him, as much as is possible, a good death.
You were supposed to live forever, little cat.
